LOWELL -- His injuries unfortunately outnumber his collegiate baseball honors, which for Pat Devlin would have otherwise been many by now.

UMass Lowell coach Ken Harring sounds fairly certain of that.

"Take away his injuries and he has a career like (Cam) Kneeland had," says Harring, projecting the frequently interrupted promise of Devlin onto the healthy fulfillment that was Kneeland, three times a first-team Northeast-10 Conference and All-East selection before he graduated to independent pro ball after batting .363 last spring.

Meanwhile, Devlin is back as a fifth-year senior, finally as healthy (knock on wood) and forever as fearless as the undamaged freshman who in 2009 batted .319 as UMass Lowell's lead-off hitter, led the team with 34 runs and a .398 on-base percentage, finished fourth in the NE-10 in stolen bases with 21, and was named to the conference's All-Rookie Team.

It looked like the start of a great career for this 5-foot-11, 205-pound whirlwind from Tewksbury.

But the injury fates turned on Devlin, who had never missed a game while playing football, basketball and baseball at Tewksbury High.

That summer following his freshman season at UMass Lowell, Devlin broke a hamate bone while fouling off a pitch for the Webster Yankees in the New York Collegiate Baseball League.

And the hits just kept on coming.

In 2010, Devlin twice tore the ACL in his left knee -- the injuries occurring during rundown drills in the spring, and, after six months' rigorous rehab, in the fall.

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Devlin returned the following spring, 2011, to play in 38 games and bat .261 for the 37-14 River Hawks, highlighted by his only home run of the season, which put UMass Lowell up 3-2 in an eventual 4-3 loss to Franklin Pierce in an NCAA East Regional game.

"I didn't have a great year that year. I didn't put up great numbers," says Devlin. "But the team was playing well, so that was probably one of my biggest highlights."

That 2011 comeback season behind him -- as well as a summer with the Sanford Mainers of the New England Collegiate Baseball League -- Devlin appeared poised to become his old self last season. During a pre-season intra-squad scrimmage, though, he tripped over first base and broke his left hand.

"He plays the game like a runaway train," says Harring, with glowing admiration.

So, Devlin missed the River Hawks' first 16 games last season. He wound up playing in 26 games, batting .290 with 16 RBI and 10 stolen bases in 11 tries for an injury-riddled 26-20-1 team that failed to qualify for the NE-10 tournament.

Devlin then last summer batted .233 with two homers in 103 at-bats for the Nashua Silver Knights, which won a the championship of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League.

"This is the first time since his freshman year he's gone into a season healthy," says Harring.

Instead of leading him to frustration, his injuries have strengthened Devlin's will to return to what he was. "Being a fifth-year senior kind of makes me realize I might not have many more days playing the game," he says. "It makes every day that much more special."

Like last Saturday, when Devlin lined a game-winning single as UMass Lowell defeated East Stroudsburg, 3-2, in Flemington, N.J., to salvage a split of a doubleheader and improve to 4-2.

On Wednesday, the River Hawks left for Florida by bus. They open their eight-game Florida trip on Friday in Boca Raton against Wilmington (Del.) University.

Devlin is so far batting .261 (6-for-23) with three RBI, hitting out of the No. 2 spot.

"Getting the bunt down, moving runners over, hitting people in. (No. 2) is a good spot for me," says Devlin, a criminal justice major. "I like doing whatever it takes to win the game."

He is also back in the infield, playing third base, after injuries limited him to being a corner outfielder. He had played second base as a freshman.

Devlin's mother, Cathy, is a teacher at the Bailey Elementary School in Lowell. His father, Michael, is a longshoreman in Boston. Michael Devlin says about Pat, his younger of two sons, "He's done a lot of hard work to get back to where he was. He's a bulldog. He knows you have to work for what you get."

Though Devlin was a two-time Merrimack Valley Conference All-Star at Tewksbury, only Harring vigorously recruited him. The coach still vividly recalls Devlin's junior year when the Tewksbury slugger homered off North Andover's hard-throwing lefty Mike Hashem (drafted by the Braves in 2011 out of Fisher College) in a 2-1 tournament game victory.

"I just loved the way he played," says Harring. "Like a runaway train -- all or nothing."

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